Hilton House Hotel, Derby

Martin was the son of John Massey (1744-1814) who owned several properties in Hilton and lived in a house which was described in his Will as adjacent to what in those days was referred to as Worrilows Croft or Close.

William was a commercial traveller and did not live at the house but instead continued to rent it to tenants for the next 25 years.

He is recorded in the 1881 Census as living there with his wife Sarah (nee Williamson) and two of his children including his eldest son Ernest Martin Massey who was then seventeen.

[6] She is said to have made a great success of it “so that throughout the country Mrs Massey's became a household word and she became an authority on matters pertaining to Domestic Service”.

Ernest Martin Massey (1863-1921) wanted to be an artist and had considerable talent as one of his paintings was shown in the 1895 The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Their eldest son was Herbert Martin Massey, the famous prisoner of Stalag Luft III.

He was educated as a child at the Spondon House Preparatory School[8] and then later at the age of 16 he went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.

In 1944 he made the decision to authorise the Great Escape, the famous breakout from the prisoner of war camp.

[10] He did not join the escape himself as he was too badly wounded but it was to him the Germans first broke the news of the execution of fifty of those who had been recaptured.

His father Ernest died in 1921 and his mother Florence and sister Ruth took over the running of the employment agency.

The next residents were Charles Andrew Newton (1877-1949) who was an engineer and his wife Marie Norah (nee Eastwood).